_Psychology and Alchemy_
by
C.G. Jung
( c. 01944 )
( personal selections )
:
“ ‘Ars totum requirit hominem !' exclaims an old alchemist. It is just this *homo totus* whom we seek. The labours of the doctor as well as the quest of the patient are directed towards that hidden and yet unmanifest 'whole' man, who is at once the greater and future man. But the right way to wholeness is made up, unfortunately, of fateful detours and wrong turnings. It is the *longissima via*, not straight but snakelike, a path that unites the opposites in the manner of the guiding caduceus, a path whose labyrinthine twists and turns are not lacking in terrors. . . “
“ . . .it is not a matter of proving the existence of the light, but of blind people who do not know that their eyes could see. It is high time we realized that it is pointless to praise the light and preach it if nobody can see it. It is much more needful to teach people the art of seeing. For it is obvious that far too many people are incapable of establishing a connection between the sacred figures and their own psyche : they cannot see to what extent the equivalent images are lying dormant in their own unconscious. In order to facilitate this inner vision we must first clear the way for the faculty of seeing. . . “
“ . . .Oddly enough the paradox is one of our most valuable spiritual possessions, while uniformity of meaning is a sign of weakness. Hence a religion becomes inwardly impoverished when it loses or waters down its paradoxes ; but their multiplication enriches because only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life. Non-ambiguity and non-contradiction are one-sided and thus unsuited to express the incomprehensible. “
“ . . .The essence of the conscious mind is discrimination ; it must, if it is to be aware of things, separate into opposites, and it does this *contra naturam*. In nature opposites seek one another --*les extremes se touchent*-- and so it is in the unconscious, and particularly in the archetype of unity, the self. Here, as in the deity, the opposites cancel out. But as soon as the unconscious begins to manifest itself they split asunder, as at Creation ; for every act of dawning consciousness is a creative act, and it is from this psychological experience that all our cosmogonic symbols are derived. “
“ The way to the goal seems chaotic and indeterminable at first, and only gradually do the signs increase that it is leading anywhere. The way is not straight but appears to go round in circles. More accurate knowledge has proved it to go in spirals : the dream-motifs always return after certain intervals to definite forms, whose characteristic it is to define a centre. And as a matter of fact the whole process revolves around a central point or some arrangement round a centre, which may in certain circumstances appear even in initial dreams. As manifestations of unconscious processes the dreams rotate or circumambulate round the centre, drawing closer to it as the amplifications increase in distinctness and scope. Owing to the diversity of the symbolical material it is difficult at first to perceive any kind of order at all. Nor should it be taken for granted that dream sequences are subject to any governing principle. But, as I say, the process of development proves on closer inspection to be cyclic or spiral. We might draw a parallel between such spiral courses and the processes of growth in plants ; in fact the plant motif (tree, flower, &c) frequently recurs in these dreams and fantasies and is also spontaneously drawn and painted. . . “
“ . . .a series of dreams which contain numerous symbols of the centre or goal. The development of these symbols is almost the equivalent of a healing process. The centre or goal thus signifies *salvation* in the proper sense of the word. . .It seems to me beyond all doubt that these processes are concerned with the religion-creating archetypes. Whatever else religion may be, those psychic ingredients of it which are empirically verifiable undoubtedly consist of unconscious manifestations of this kind. People have dwelt far too long on the fundamentally sterile question of whether the assertions of faith are true or not. Quite apart from the impossibility of ever proving or refuting the truth of a metaphysical assertion, the very existence of the assertion is a self-evident fact that needs no further proof, and when a *consensus gentium* allies itself thereto the validity of the statement is proved to just that extent. The only thing about it that we can verify is the psychological phenomenon, which is incommensurable with the category of objective rightness or truth. No phenomenon can ever be disposed of by rational criticism, and in religious life we have to deal with phenomena and facts and not with arguable hypotheses. “
“ . . .Our understanding of these deeper layers of the psyche is helped not only by a knowledge of primitive psychology and mythology, but to an even greater extent by some familiarity with the history of our modern consciousness and the stages immediately preceding it. On one hand it is a child of the Church ; on the other, of science, in whose beginnings very much lies hid that the Church was unable to accept-- that is to say, remnants of the classical spirit and the classical feeling for nature which could not be exterminated and eventually found refuge in the natural philosophy of the Middle Ages. As the 'spiritus metallorum' and the astrological components of destiny lasted out many a Christian century. Whereas in the Church the increasing differentiation of ritual and dogma alienated consciousness from its natural roots in the unconscious, alchemy and astrology were ceaselessly engaged in preserving the bridge to nature, i.e., to the unconscious psyche, from decay. “
“ When modern psychotherapy once more meets with the activated archetypes of the collective unconscious, it is merely the repetition of a phenomenon that has often been observed in moments of great religious crisis, although it can also occur in individuals for whom the ruling ideas have lost their meaning. An example of this is the *descensus ad inferos* depicted in _Faust_, which, consciously or unconciously, is an *opus alchymicum*.
The problem of opposites called up by the shadow plays a great --indeed, decisive-- role in alchemy, since it leads in the ultimate phase of the work to the union of opposites in the archetypal form of the *hierosgamos* or 'chymical wedding'. Here the supreme opposites, male and female (as in the Chinese yang and yin), are melted into a unity purified of all opposition and therefore incorruptible. The prerequisite for this, of course, is that the artifex should not identify himself with the figures in the work but leave them in their objective, impersonal state. So long as the alchemist was working in his laboratory he was in a favorable position, psychologically speaking, for he had no opportunity to identify himself with the archetypes as they appeared, since they were all projected immediately into the chemical substances. The disadvantage of this situation was that the alchemist was forced to represent the incorruptible substance as a chemical product-- an impossible undertaking which led to the downfall of alchemy, its place in the laboratory being taken by chemistry. But the psychic part of the work did not disappear. It captured new interpreters, as we can see from the example of _Faust_, and also from the signal connection between our modern psychology of the unconscious and alchemical symbolism. “
“ Slowly, in the course of the eighteenth century, alchemy perished in its own obscurity. Its method of explanation --'obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius' (the obscure by the more obscure, the unknown by the more unknown)-- was incompatible with the spirit of enlightenment and particularly with the dawning science of chemistry towards the end of the century. But these two new intellectual forces only gave the *coup de grace* to alchemy. Its inner decay had begun a century earlier, at the time of Jacob Bohme, when many alchemists deserted their alembics and melting-pots and devoted themselves entirely to (Hermetic) philosophy. It was then that the chemist and the Hermetic philosopher parted company. Chemistry became natural science, whereas Hermetic philosophy lost its empirical ground from under its feet and aspired to bombastic allegories and inane speculations which were kept alive only by memories of a better time. This was a time when the mind of the alchemist was still grappling with the problems of matter, when the exploring consciousness was confronted by the dark void of the unknown, in which figures and laws were dimly perceived and attributed to matter although they really belonged to the psyche. Everything unknown and empty is filled with psychological projection ; it is as if the investigator's own psychic background were mirrored in the darkness. What he sees in matter, or thinks he can see, is chiefly the data of his own unconscious which he is projecting into it. In other words, he encounters in matter, as apparently belonging to it, certain qualities and potential meanings of whose psychic nature he is entirely unconscious. This is particularly true of classical alchemy, when empirical science and mystical philosophy were more or less undifferentiated. “
“ Alchemy, as is well known, describes a process of chemical transformation and gives numberless directions for its accomplishment. Although hardly two authors are of the same opinion regarding the exact course of the process and the sequence of its stages, the majority are agreed on the principal points at issue, and have been so from the earliest times, i.e., since the beginning of the Christian era. Four stages are distinguished, characterized by the original colours mentioned in Heraclitus : *melanosis* (blackening), *leukosis* (whitening), *xanthosis* (yellowing), and *iosis* (reddening). This division of the process was called the quartering of the philosophy. Later, about the fifteenth or sixteenth century, the colours were reduced to three, and the *xanathosis*, otherwise called the *citrinitas*, gradually fell into disuse or was but seldom mentioned. Instead, the *viriditas* sometimes appears after the *melanosis* or *nigredo* in exceptional cases, though it was never generally recognized. Whereas the original tetrameria corresponded exactly to the quaternity of elements, it was now frequently stressed that although there were four elements (earth, water, fire, air) and four qualities (hot, cold, dry, moist), there were only three colours : black, white, and red.
Since the process never led to the desired goal and since the individual parts of it were never carried out in any standardized manner, the change in the classification of its stages cannot be due to extraneous reasons but has more to do with the symbolical significance of the quaternity and the trinity ; in other words, it is due to inner psychological reasons. . . “
“ . . The *nigredo* or blackness is the initial state, either present from the beginning as a quality of the *prima materia*, the chaos or *masa confusa*, or else produced by the separation (*solutio, separatio, divisio, putrefactio*) of the elements. If the separated condition is assumed at the start, as sometimes happens, then a union of opposites is performed under the likeness of a union of male and female (called the *coniugium, matrimonium, coniunctio, coitus*), followed by the death of the product of the union (*mortificatio, calcinatio, putrefactio*) and a corresponding *nigredo*. From this the washing (*ablutio, babtisma*) either leads direct to the whitening (*albedo*), or else the soul (*anima*) released at the 'death' is reunited with the dead body and brings about its resurrection, or again the 'many colours' (*omnes colores*), or 'peacock's tail' (*cauda pavonis*), lead to the one white colour that contains all colours. At this point the first main goal of the process is reached, namely the *albedo, tinctura alba, terra alba foliata, lapis albus*, etc., highly prized by many alchemists as if it were the ultimate goal. It is the silver or moon condition, which still has to be raised to the sun condition. The *albedo* is, so to speak, the daybreak, but not till the *rubedo* is it sunrise. The transition to the *rubedo* is formed by the *citrinitas*, though this, as we have said, was omitted later. The *rubedo* then follows direct from the *albedo* as the result of raising the heat of the fire to the highest intensity. The red and the white are King and Queen, who may celebrate their 'chymical wedding' at this stage. “
“ The arrangement of the stages in individual authors depends primarily on their conception of the goal : sometimes this is the white or red tincture (*aqua permanens*) ; sometimes the philospher's stone, which, as a hermaphrodite, contains both ; or again it is the panacea (*aurum potabile, elixir vitae*), philosophical gold, golden glass (*vitrum aureum*), malleable glass (*vitrum malleabile*). The conceptions of the goal are as vague and various as the individual processes. The *lapis philosophorum*, for instance, is often the *prima materia*, or the means of producing the gold ; or again it is an altogether mystical being that is sometimes called *Deus terrestris, Salvator, or filius macrocosmi*, a figure we can only compare with the Gnostic Anthropos, the divine original man.
Besides the idea of the *prima materia*, that of water (*aqua paermanens*) and that of fire (*ignis noster*) play an important part. Although these two elements are antagonistic and even constitute a typical pair of opposites, they are yet one and the same according to the testimony of the authors. Like the *prima materia* the water has a thousand names ; it is even said to be the original material of the stone. In spite of this we are on the other hand assured that the water is extracted from the stone or *prima materia* as its live-giving soul (*anima*). . . “
“ . . .Another, no less important, idea is that of the Hermetic vessel (*vas Hermetis*), typified by the retorts or melting-furnaces that contained the substances to be transformed. Although an instrument, it nevertheless has peculiar connections with the *prima materia* as well as the *lapis*, so it is no mere piece of apparatus. For the alchemists the vessel is truly something marvellous : a *vas mirabile*. 'Unum est vas' (the vessel is one) is emphasized again and again. It must be completely round, in imitation of the spherical cosmos, so that the influence of the stars may contribute to the success of the operation. It is a kind of matrix or uterus from which the *filius philosophorum*, the miraculous stone, is to be born. Hence it is required that the vessel be not only round but egg-shaped. . .
. . .I will not enter further into all the innumerable synonyms for the vessel. The few I have mentioned will suffice to demonstrate its undoubted symbolical significance.
As to the process as a whole, the authors are vague and contradictory. Many content themselves with a few summary hints, others make an elaborate list of the various operations. . . “
“ . . .Such is, superficially and in the roughest outline, the framework of alchemy as known to us all. From the point of view of our modern knowledge of chemistry it tells us little or nothing, and if we turn to the texts and the hundreds and hundreds of procedures and recipes left behind by the Middle Ages and antiquity, we shall find relatively few among them with any recognizable meaning for the chemist. He would probably find most of them nonsensical, and furthermore it is certain beyond all doubt that no real tincture or artificial gold was ever produced during the many centuries of earnest endeavour. What then, we may fairly ask, induced the old alchemists to go on labouring --or, as they said, 'operating'-- so steadfastly and to write all those treatise on the 'divine' art if their whole undertaking was so portentously futile ? To do them justice we must add that all knowledge of the nature of chemistry and its limitations was still completely closed to them, so that they were as much entitled to hope as those who dreamed of flying and whose successors made the dream come true after all. Nor should we underestimate the sense of satisfaction born of the enterprise, the excitement of the adventure, of the *quaerere* (seeking) and the *invenire* (finding). This always lasts as long as the methods employed seem sensible. There was nothing at that time to convince the alchemist of the senselessness of his chemical operations ; what is more, he could look back on a long tradition which contained not a few testimonies of such as had achieved the marvellous result. Finally the matter was not entirely without promise, since a number of useful discoveries did occasionally emerge as byproducts of his labours in the laboratory. As the forerunner of chemistry alchemy has a sufficient *raison d'etre*. Hence, even if alchemy had consisted in --if you like-- an unending series of futile and barren chemical experiments, it would be no more astonishing than the venturesome endeavours of medieval medicine and pharmacology. “
“ The alchemical *Opus* deals in the main not just with chemical experiments as such, but with something resembling psychic processes expressed in pseudochemical language. The ancients knew more or less what chemical processes were ; therefore they must have known that the thing they practised was, to say the least of it, no ordinary chemistry (. . .) And soon afterwards a wealth of evidence accumulates to show that in alchemy there are two —in our eyes— heterogeneous currents flowing side by side, which we simply cannot conceive as being compatible. Alchemy’s ‘tam ethicce quam physice’ (as much ethical —i.e., psychological— as physical) is impenetrable to our logic. if the alchemist is admittedly using the chemical process only symbolically, then why does he work in a laboratory with crucibles and alembics ? And if, as he constantly asserts, he is describing chemical processes, why distort them past recognition with his mythological symbolism ? “
